Pokemon Fan Film Part 2 - Short by Joel Otero (My brother :D ) - Check out part 2 of the PTD Fan Film!

New Story Level - Poke Tower 2 - What awaits us at the next level of the tower!?New Pokemon to capture - It's a surprise!Level cap up to 62 - Why not!New Special Halloween Avatars to collect - Thanks Kimmy Lube and Zyon!

Follow the Mystery Hunt to get the Gastly Avatar!

Play the Daily Code to win one of the 5 Halloween Avatars!

Buy the Duskull Costume with your Casino Coins in the Game Corner!

Buy any of the Halloween Avatar in the Avatar Store in the Pokemon Center for SnD Coins!

Implementing Accuracy and Evasion properly - Meaning attacks that lower or raise accuracy/evasion will affect the chances of hitting the target. This will work with your attacks and the enemy's.Add a new effect similar to Black and White when an ability is triggered Adding more abilities for other pokemo

Changing the way saving works to prevent pokemon from being lost due to server errors - This will also make your saving take less time since it only saves what is necessary.Fixed a duplication exploit - There was a hole in security that allowed people to duplicate their pokemon.Added security to the Pokemon Center - It is now okay to share your url with other players.Fixed an issue that was preventing the lowering of special attack debuff from workingThe Lower (Special) Attack Debuff will now last 1800Attacks that lower the target's (special) attack will no longer make them drop the candy. Only attacks that lower accuracy will make them drop the candy. This results in a shorter cooldown for these attack

That was a long week! I wasn't sure I was going to make it, but I got most of it done :) My brother finally finished the second part of the PTD Fan Film check it out and let him know what you think. Speaking of my brother, him and I are co-writing a new web series that is a mockumentary (Think The Office) about two brothers who want to work in the entertainment industry. Him making movies and me making video games. I'll be co-writing and doing some voice work for my character and he will be doing everything else. You can expect the pilot episode sometime in December. For Hero Tower Defense we want to release the first version of the game by January, so look forward to it. I still plan to make a HTD tab and a Labs tab in the near future to talk about any ideas that we have here at Sam & Dan Games. Now for the weekly questions from the forums.

Weekly Questions from the Forums!

1. Mitha: How important is balancing to you? Since most of the stats and moves are given by the original, you don't have much leeway, but you can balance a bit by how the animations work etc. Or don't you care at all about this?Sam:I do care a lot about balancing the game, once the game is done I will go back and try to fix any imbalances but for now I fix as I go.

2. Robert Conley: Would you ever consider coding the Pokemon Center's trading system using javascript(link showing as javascript:void when moused over) so that we don't have to wait for a page load (instead possibly having a pop up that says the pokemon was removed, put up, or received) to deposit, remove, or receive Pokemon and then returning to the trade page?Sam: I don't have a lot of experience in javascript but as time goes on I will try to make the Pokemon Center more intuitive.3. Crazymerio: Will you eventually revamp some of the levels and features so that a new player can better understand the game/give the game more continuity. The best example I can think of is the adding of the main character not appearing in the very beginning of the game. It is very strange for the main character to go from you(outside of the computer) to an avatar in the game.Sam:Yes! I do plan to do things like this little by little. The level rebalance is for this very thing. Even though I didn't get to finish it this week.4. Mudkipz: Are we going to see more "cameo"-esk characters?For example Maruto - The majority of people know who this is supposed to be, and i like the idea of them. If so will se be seeing any of them soon?Sam: Yes! I will try to fit more in here and there :)5. Trainer Red: What do you have to say to all the people trying to hack PTD at the moment?Sam: Stop! Please :)6. NinjaGod: Do you plan for avatar chat to become the main chat for PTD? (do you expect it to replace the IRC channels when it is done)?Sam: No, I don't want it to replace the IRC chats.7. Djm1997: What do you plan to make fly do since we can go everywhere instantly? Will it give us special levels or what?Sam: I'm still thinking about what it can do exactly.

8. Xehanorto: Do you plan to nerf certain abilities that can't work for a Tower Defense game?Sam: I usually remove moves that doesn't fit or try to change them. An example of this was Sand Attack not lowering accuracy since the enemy couldn't attack you before, but now that they can I added accuracy and Sand Attack behaves like it does in the game. So some of the missing moves will show up later on possibly.

9. ZKS: Do you plan on changing how Helping Hand works? Right now, it's extremely overpowered and makes all other stat boosting moves (Quiver Dance, Baton Pass, Dragon Dance, etc) worthless. And, do you plan on making BP able to pass a Sub or Water Ring like the games do?Sam:Helping Hand is overpowered at the moment, to really make things interesting I would have to make buffs/debuffs stack 6 times. I do want to make Baton Pass more useful in the future.

10. Slash: Have you considered making special sprites/versions of certain Pokemon? ex. Ash's Squirtle (Wearing the Squirtle Squad glasses) or Gary's Giant Krabby?Sam: Yes I have considered it but I never get the time to add them in.

If you want your question to show up on next week's blog go to our forum now (look at the fan links tab up top) and submit your question.

So we have a lot of left over things to do from last week so let's start there.

I won't be able to work a lot today (Saturday) and tomorrow so I will be postponing what is left for next week and releasing in about 2 hours (1:28PM Est), thanks for playing :)

Adding more features to the chat to prevent spamming (100%)

Added names being in a blue color to prevent users from impersonating other people (100%)

Satoshi users will now have name Satoshi1, Satoshi2... etc (100%)

It is now possible to ignore somebody by typing in /ignore nickname (Replace nickname with the users nickname) (100%) - They will be ignored while you are in the chat room, leaving the chat room will reset the ignore.

Adding a new layout to the trading center (Postponed ): )- Thanks Nssvelocity!Going back and making the game less grindy for new players (Postponed ): ) - The newest level will always be top end and require a high level team.Allow players to change their email and/or password in the pokemon center (Postponed ): ) - You will have to supply your own email and password in order to change them to prevent hackers from changing it.Change the way getting shiny pokemon in the wild works to prevent hacking of shiny pokemon (Postponed ): ) - Adding a new way to find shiny pokemon.New Pokemon To capture (100%)

New Moves (3) (Skipping one for now, but will add it once I fit all the mechanics in the game for it) (100%)

Implement Graphics (100%)

Implement Shiny Graphics (100%)

Implement Stats (100%)

Implement Moves/TMs (100%)

New Story Level (100%) - Training Level!

Level Intro (100%)

Level Layout (100%)

Level Waves (100%)

Level Ending (100%)

New TM (100%)

Ice Beam (100%)

Level cap to 64 (100%)

Acid Armor (100%) - Vaporeon

Add an exp tag when leveling up (100%) - This is a technical fix. This is included in v4.7.1Made the Waterfall attack animation quicker (100%)Made Waterfall attack show the correct attack type (not effective, super effective or normal) (100%)Fixed Zap Cannon doing Shadow Ball instead of Zap Cannon (100%)Make Destiny Bond and moves like that only work on pokemon that are at lower level than you (100%)Fixed Onix learning Double-Edge twice and not learning Stone-Edge (100%) Made both Nidorans have a unique name ingame (Nidoran F and Nidoran M) (100%) It is no longer possible to put pokemon in type specific spots if they don't match the type (100%) Added the attack power to the attack description of Snore (100%)

That's what we have so far, as always let me know what you think, and keep coming back during the week to see how my progress on the update is going. As I work/finish parts I will update the blog.

Have a good week and Hero Tower Defense Tuesday is tomorrow so look forward to that!

Time for another HTD update! This week I want to explain our thoughts on how melee characters might work and how enemy actions may vary.

Since HTD is a RPG/TD mix we want try taking mechanics from both genres when it comes to the placement of units and how they work in battle. Also don't forget that in HTD you'll have maps where you're attacking, defending, and some with a mix of both. We also plan to have set character (tower) placements but a lot of them. So while it won't be an open field you will have a bunch of option for placing your units. There will also likely be maps with more than one enemy path. All of these things play a role when it comes to the topics of this post so I wanted to give you all a quick refresher.

Now onto what we had in mind. In PTD the melee characters are basically just ranged characters but instead of a projectile covering the distance you have the character dashing up instead. For HTD we were thinking of having the melee characters just remain stationary in their spot and attack from there. However, they would most likely have a ranged weapon that they automatically switch to when an enemy is far away and some skills might be ranged themselves.

Since melee characters are strongest when they are in melee range having them in a spot that is off to the side of a path, like traditional tower defense, wouldn't be ideal because you would only cover a small area. Imagine a tower with a small radius on the side of the path, it's crappy unless it's in a nice corner or tight U-turn. So we were thinking of just having some placements directly on the enemy paths themselves. This way the melee characters get to be in the thick of battle where they should be while the ranged characters can be in safer areas.

You might asking yourself, "Wouldn't the enemies just walk right past him?" In Traditional TDs, yes, in HTD, no. You'll have skills like taunt that bring nearby enemies to you and keep them there for a time, you'll have skills that can temporarily immobilize enemies, you may also have a skill that acts like a hook that can pull a single target to within melee range from far away. And as I mentioned before there will be lots of locations for your characters so you can move him around a bit, whether it's to get close to an enemy or get out of trouble.

Another concept we want to try is to have enemies with different behaviours. You might see several enemies of the same type coming down a path but they won't all just be running for your base or whatever. Some might be aggressive and actually go after your characters and attack them, others might be defensive and go straight for you base while ignoring your attacks, and then there's always the option of having some with a mix. Perhaps they might run for your base at first but once they get low on health they start attacking your characters instead, etc.

This idea can be handled a few different ways. You can have all of one type of enemy (they would all look the same) with different behaviours which would take you by surprise. You can have different types of enemies with different behaviours so you can identify how they'll act just by looking at them. For example, a werewolf is an attacking unit that will go after your characters while a goblin might be a defensive unit that runs straight for your base. Another option is to have a mix, for example you have multiple dragon whelps coming that all look the same but some are larger than others or have some other slight distinction. The larger ones could be the ones that are aggressive while the smaller ones are defensive, etc.

For those you who haven't yet be sure to check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD to get the latest on HTD art development! The female hair style poll has ended and the results are pleasing because there is nice diversity in the styles that won. Here's a nice update on the female progress with one of the winning hair styles that will be available at release:

Human Female

We'd like to hear what you guys think of these concepts and any ideas of your own that you might have. I've seen a lot of great suggestions from people in the past and all the feedback is very helpful so be sure to let us know what you think!

To help resolve this issue I have added Battle Ready Non-Shiny Pokemon to the adoption center that are free of charge for this week ONLY. I will not be able to return any shiny pokemon. I will only be able to refund SnD coins to those who bought them and lost their pokemon.

Also I'm aware of new profiles not being able to save or press many buttons like the back button I will fix this on v4.6.2. Coming out shortly.

v4.6.2 is now out and fixes the saving issue with new profiles.

Thanks,Sam

What's new in v4.6.1

Avatar Chat v1.0 - The avatar chat is now open, click on the blog tab to enter and chat with your other players.New Mystery Gift Pokemon Goldeen -Get your own Goldeen!2 new moves added to the game - For Goldeen. New Pokemon Evolutions (1) - Seaking.Pokedex Remembering what you catch even if you release or trade away. New Feature - Abilities:

Overgrow - Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Venusaur - Increased damage by x1.5 on Grass attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Green when this ability is activated.

Blaze - Charmander,Charmeleon, Charizard - Increased damage by x1.5 on Fire attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Orange when this ability is activated.

Torrent - Squirtle, Wartortle, Blastoise - Increased damage by x1.5 on Water attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Blue when this ability is activated.

Trading Center - trades will last a max of 10 days before being taken down - Logging into the trading center will refresh the days left of your trades back to 10 days.Trading Center - Sort the pokemon when you are offering a trade by number The move Spark now correctly shows the right attack color when attacking Slow down speed to x1 when an achievement shiny pokemon shows up Fixed an issue with not being able to play a new game.

Are you ready for another week of Sam and Dan Games?! Well I am! We haven't had much content here lately for PTD mainly due to building the avatar chat from scratch. But now that that's done I'm ready to ramp it up again on the single player for PTD. But before I get into that, the great members of our forum have provided me with the top 10 questions of the week.

Weekly Questions from the Forums!

1. Samzy: What do you think attracts players to PTD so much? And have you ever looked at PTD and thought, I made this popular creation, well done me :-) ?Sam: It's not easy to see the game as a player but my opinion is that there are a lot of low quality fan made pokemon games out there. So when a player starts playing this game they might think it's just another bad fan game but when they see that it's fun and doesn't just slap pokemon in they really appreciate it. I am proud of this game and how far it has come :).

2. Mastersnowy: In HTD, will you be adding PTD benefits for beating levels? Or the other way around?Sam: Yeah, this is something that Dan and I want to do eventually. Both ways.3. Crazymerio: How do you decide which game suggestions to add, when you add new suggestion from the suggestions tab or from somewhere else?Sam: This is a good question since there is really no right or wrong way of doing this. I basically look at a lot of variables. For example if we haven't had a new pokemon to catch in a while, when was the last time the level cap went up, what location do we have to visit next, is there major bugs that need to be fixed, is there a hack going around. After all of those are fufilled then I look the list of things I have in my head and the list on the site and which you guys have been asking for and I try to do those.4. PikachuEevee: Where do you know Dan from?Sam: We both worked at this warehouse, thats how we first meet.5. King Slaughter House: Are you as motivated right now as you were when you first developed this game? And if not, what could get your gears grinding again ;-) ?Sam: Yes and no, I'm still very excited about adding more to the game but when you are starting a new project the motivation is at the highest level. I think just the support of everybody and people playing the game week after week gets my gears grinding.6. 1superheld: Do you think you will add a style (CSS) to the tradecenter?Sam: Yes, a fan (Nssvelocity) made a layout a while ago that I want to implement soon.7. NinjaGod: So, avatar chat is basically useless when someone is spamming... Can we get a kick for flooders and a ban for repeat-offenders?Sam: Yes, I agree, more features will be added in v4.7.

8. Ume: Are you gonna add a halloween special event/level/story?Sam: Yes, v4.7 will have some goodies :D

9.Link: How many people BOUGHT ninja-ja... and how many downloaded it after it became free. I'd like to see that comparison. Sam: We don't actually keep track of how many people downloaded the free version but a little over 3,000 have submitted high scores. Less than 2,000 people have bought it since it came out. I think the big issue is that you have to download Ninja-ja, we have to put a version here on the blog that you can play right on the site.

10. MMaester: Roughly how many games have you already made before PTD? On Newgrounds there are 2 others available (Cannon Challenge and eTheatre), but are there more, and are they playable somewhere?Sam: I've started tons of games before those two but never finished any of them.

If you want your question to show up on next week's blog go to our forum now (look at the fan links tab up top) and submit your question.

Okay just a quick thing with people getting scammed in the Trading Center. NEVER give anybody the url of any of your trades, only give them the trade ID. If you do accidentally do it log into your game and save. This will make the link not work anymore. I will be patching it up this week so that the url no longer contains sensitive information.

Okay so this week we have it all!

New Story Level - Poke Tower 2 (100%) - What awaits us at the next level of the tower!?

Implementing Accuracy and Evasion properly (100%) - Meaning attacks that lower or raise accuracy/evasion will affect the chances of hitting the target. This will work with your attacks and the enemy's.Add a new effect similar to Black and White when an ability is triggered (100%) Adding more abilities for other pokemon (100%)

Changing the way saving works to prevent pokemon from being lost due to server errors (100%)Fixed a duplication exploit (100%) Fixed an issue that was preventing the lowering of special attack debuff from working (100%) The Lower (Special) Attack Debuff will now last 1800 (100%) Attacks that lower the target's (special) attack will no longer make them drop the candy. Only attacks that lower accuracy will make them drop the candy. This results in a shorter cooldown for these attacks (100%) Adding more features to the chat to prevent spamming (Postponed)Adding a new layout to the trading center (Postponed) - Thanks Nssvelocity!Going back and making the game less grindy for new players (Postponed) - This might not make it to this update. The newest level will always be top end and require a high level team.Allow players to change their email and/or password in the pokemon center (Postponed) - You will have to supply your own email and password in order to change them to prevent hackers from changing it.Change the way getting shiny pokemon in the wild works to prevent hacking of shiny pokemon (Postponed) - It is no longer possible to get shiny pokemon in the wild. A new way of hunting for them will be adding in the near future.

That's what we have so far, as always let me know what you think, and keep coming back during the week to see how my progress on the update is going. As I work/finish parts I will update the blog.

Have a good week and Hero Tower Defense Tuesday is tomorrow so look forward to that!

This area of the game is still rather open-ended and undetermined at this point, more so than most other aspects of the game. So I wanted to tell you guys a little bit about what we had in mind for HTD's story and single player and then get your feedback and suggestions on it.

Elements are a key part of the HTD world which I'm sure is rather clear at this point. We have 5 elements (Fire, Water, Nature, Light, and Shadow) each with their own advantages and disadvantages against eachother as well as their own physical and magical skills that specialize in categories like offense, defense, and utility. You also have a native element that gives you a bit more power with that element and you also gain combination elemental attacks when you make certain matches in the elemental trees. With that in mind it's pretty easy to say the elements should tie into the story and world rather heavily.

The game is of course based in a fantasy world so that opens up a lot of paths. That also means there is a lot to consider.. how much technology is there and how advanced is it? Is the current state of things peaceful or chaotic? Is there some major event currently taking place? etc. The same goes for your character and characters you meet in single player.. how old are you? Are you a king's son or a lowly peasant? Is there something unique about you or your family? Do you have some hidden past? etc. I personally don't like things being too cliche but it's a bit difficult to avoid because there's so much out there that people have already seen but, hey, we'll try.

We have some ideas in mind but without giving away too much I can say you'll be old enough that you're out on your own doing things like adventuring and exploring and whatnot. During single player you'll meet other characters that may join you, probably some from your past and some new. At least part of the story will be about you seeking out something related to your native element, perhaps how to master it so you can acquire greater skills with that element. During your quest there will probably be trials that test your skill with the elemental system. So there might be like a crazy shadow boss you have to fight or a water cavern you have to get through. While I wouldn't say there's a doomsday character who's out to destroy the world you'll definitely come across characters/creatures that are much stronger than you and are terrorizing that area or blocking your way.

So as you can see there's a lot up in the air story-wise. As I mentioned we have a several things in mind that are more solid but I don't want to give it all away. This is also mainly for single player. The multiplayer will continue the story to an extent but have a wider scope. We're interested in hearing what you guys would like to see though. Do you like the uber, evil, insane guy wanting to take over the world? The mysterious past that you gradually uncover? Perhaps just the idea of going out and discovering the unknown?

There will also be side quests and such as well that will probably be completely unrelated to the main story but that's why they're side quests right? I know we have some writers out there with ideas they'd like to share as well. Let us know what you have on your mind! But try to summarize it. ;)

Also don't forget to check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD for all things art related to HTD! You'll find additional concept art, polls to help us decide on certain art aspects (currently which female hairstyles to start with), and he recently added a progress list. Here's a new WIP logo design Kevin made:

WIP HTD Logo

As always let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments, thanks!

Level Cap up to 60 - Last level increase until the next chapter!Fast-Forwarding x3 and x4 - Speed up even more!New Mystery Gift Pokemon Krabby -Get your own cute little krabby!12 new moves added to the game - For Krabby and pokemon going up to 60. New Pokemon Evolutions (1) - Kingler.Fixes:

Added hints on how to get Flash to the Rock Tunnel level

Fix an issue with not being able to put Gastly on the field after catching it

Fixed Perish Song

Fixed Curse

Fixed Dragon Tail makes the target turn around before hitting them

Earthquake's attack info will now include that it will hit your own towers

Adding more space on Mt. Moon 2 and Cerulean Gym so that you can see pokemon coming before attacking

Adding Speed x3 and x4

Using a Shiny Golem and Steamroller, the regular golem graphic shows up

Fixed Dragonite not learning Wing Attack at 55

Fixed Lick Attack's text color being the wrong one

Fixed Shiny Sprites for Ivysaur, Magnemite, Venusaur, Electrode

Fixed pokemon evolving will say Bulbasaur evolved into Ivysaur

Added Scope to inventory list in the Pokemon Center

If a pokemon faints while you are dragging it, it will now not be able to be placed on the field

Gave Curse a different effect if a ghost pokemon uses i

Fixed the move description for Outrage, the cooldown is off

You guys voted! Speed will slow down to x1 when a shiny or legendary popup shows up.

Fixed bug that the speed text would not change back to x1 when a shiny shows up.

Well that was a long list! How are you guys? It's been a week since I've posted something here.I traded my Mew yesterday and I put up an Entei up for trade this week. My trade account name is samO so give me an offer. I can pretty much get any pokemon in the game instantly so don't ask for what I want specifically just think about making me a unique offer.

My brother is still hard at work on the next PTD video episode two. Check out his blog and show him your support for the videos. Aperture Eye Films.

Dan is also hard at work on the next Ninja-ja Update. Not sure when he will be done but he is working at it. He is also working on the game design for Hero Tower Defense and it's coming along great. I've been working more and more on HTD and I'm very excited to finally reach a point that we can finally let you guys play.

In a more personal level, I've decided to focus more on College and on creating games so I ended up resigning my job. It was kinda crazy how it all happened but now the dust is settled and I'm ready to move forward.

Speaking of moving forward I have totally failed on even starting the Avatar Chat, that 0% is completely true. To get it done I have to dedicate the whole week to it. So again this week we will take it a bit slow, yet providing you with new things to do. I want to implement a new feature but I'm not sure which of the two I will implement. Help decide which one, but before you vote read the descriptions below.

Option 1: Held Items - Your pokemon will be able to hold on to different items like the everstone, charcoal, etc. Items will be found in the wild when you defeat a pokemon, in the daily code, the game corner, and by using snd coins to get them.

Option 2: Winner!Pokemon Abilities - Each pokemon will have their passive abilities like in the game, pokemon might randomly be assigned one of their abilities when you capture it. There will also be some unique abilities pokemon offered in the daily code, the game corner and by using snd coins to get them.

So think about which of these you like to see first (The "loser" will be added in a later date to the game) and vote today!

Okay so here is the list so far!

v4.6 is now out in the blog, the official release along with the Goldeen Mystery Gift will be available by Monday.

Avatar Chat (100%) - Done! Go check it out! *points at new tab on the blogPokedex Remembering what you catch even if you release or trade away (100%) - You must first save your game on v4.6 for this to take effect.New Mystery Gift Pokemon (100%) - This pokemon is shiny, bright, expensive and heavy! Or is that just his name...it's Goldeen!

Graphics (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Add this pokemon's stats into the game (100%)

New Moves (2) (100%)

Waterfall (100%)

Soak (100%)

New Evolution (100%)

Graphics (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Add this pokemon's stats into the game (100%)

New Feature (100%) - Abilities - More abilities will be added each week. The reason for this is things like evasion and accuracy attacks are not properly implemented yet and some of the abilities are related to these stats. So I need to add those before I add those abilities.

Added Abilities for the starter pokemon (100%)

Overgrow - Bulbasaur, Ivysaur, Venusaur - Increased damage by x1.5 on Grass attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Green when this ability is activated.

Blaze - Charmander,Charmeleon, Charizard - Increased damage by x1.5 on Fire attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Orange when this ability is activated.

Torrent - Squirtle, Wartortle, Blastoise - Increased damage by x1.5 on Water attacks when you are below or at 1/3 of your total life. Your pokemon will glow Blue when this ability is activated.

Trading Center - trades will last a max of 10 days before being taken down (100%) - Logging into the trading center will refresh the days left of your trades back to 10 days.Trading Center - Sort the pokemon when you are offering a trade by number (100%)The move Spark now correctly shows the right attack color when attacking (100%) Slow down speed to x1 when an achievement shiny pokemon shows up (100%)

Weekly Questions from the Forums!

1. Hypermania/Samzy: Do you plan to be FINISHED with the game after Mewthree? Will there be any post-game things to do, so after the main story is completed?

Sam: The main story will be finished, things to do after are playing multiplayer and trying to catch them all.

2. mudemude12: Will more legends from other regions help in the game? (e.g. Celebi, Entei, Raikou, Suicune)

Sam: Since Generation 1 has a limited amount of legendaries, I will introduce some from other generations.3. JohtoTrainer: Why do you recolor the walking sprites with shiny colors from battle sprites instead of simply using the shiny walking sprites?Sam: When I first looking for the sprite I didn't find the shiny ones so I had a friend (Haplo) create them. For a possible sequel I will just grab them from there :D4. JohtoTrainer: Have you considered adding, in some way, Pokemon with event-only moves? (e.g. Surfing Pikachu and Flying Pikachu)Sam: Yeah, I do think about that, it's more about finding a good timing for it.5. NinjaGod: Can we possibly get some type of ignore function for the trade center? (I get a lot of spam/lowball requests from the same users and I'd like to be able to auto ignore them.)Sam: Yes! When will it happen I don't know yet.6. Marth: When we beat the game will there be a challenge mode where you implement yourself in to the game as the game creator and send every pokemon out one by one shiny and non-shiny until you have sent out every pokemon in shiny and non shiny form and then give us a special avatar? o.o to show we beat the game and the really hard challenge mode

Sam: Sounds interesting, I might do something like that after the game is done.7. ninja_trainer: Are you going to make challenge mode versions of every gym?

Sam: Not necessarily, but when the story is over I might go back and add more challenge levels.

8. ninja_trainer: Are you going to use some of the Fan-made levels in the game as story levels?Sam: Probably not, most fan made suggestions are for challenge levels. I enjoy making the story levels myself :)9. Ace: If, by any chance, Nintendo takes a sudden liking to PTD and would give you tons of dollars to buy it off of you, would you accept and why?Sam: I think I would accept, one because it's their property and two because they have a lot more resources than me and the game can be a lot more polished and appear on the DS.10. NinjaGod: Will there be mini-games in PTD for various prizes? (e.g. Duck Hunt -> Pidgey Hunt)Sam: Sure, this is more about finding the time to create the mini games. There is a lot to be done in the game before I can think about adding mini games.11. yamamitai: Will we have another chance to catch the weekly code only Pokemon like regular Staryu and Tentacool?Sam: Yea! Once we get to the spots where they show up in the game or when you get a better rod you will be able to catch them like any other pokemon.12. gogogogo99: Will you add more things to buy at the game corner?

Sam: Yes! Held items and pokemon with different abilities will show up in the game corner.13: aleony: Will you ever do special holiday events and give out a special pokemon for that reason?Sam: Yes, I think people enjoy things like that :)

14: Crazymerio: If this company ever expands, will you consider hiring another programer in order to decrease the work load and get more done in a week, or however long you plan on programming something? If this company does get larger, do you still plan on trying to listen to your fans to the best of your ability?

Sam: Programmers are really hard to hire because it's hard to really measure how skilled they are. The ideal candidate is somebody who has made a game in flash before in Action Script 3 and that their game is popular and played by many people. Also it is hard because PTD has tens of thousands lines of code so just hiring a programmer and expecting them to start working right away is not realistic. It would take months before they could work on it without much hand holding. But having said that we are always in the look out for talent and plan to expand more in the future. Also we would always try to listen to feedback and make the creation of our games be something kind of like a journey between us the developers and you the fans :)As I get more done I will add more to the list, as always let me know what you think!

Last week we talked a bit about character creation so this week let's talk about character stats.

So since this is part RPG and part TD we of course have to give the characters some attributes that increase and make your character stronger. We decided to go along with the traditional strength, stamina, etc stats because everyone is familiar with them and they work well. However, the actual affect of each stat tends to vary from game to game but they usually follow a general idea. We'll be doing the same in HTD.

Here are what we have as the Primary stats:

Strength (STR) - Increases Physical Damage

Stamina (STA) - Increases Health Points

Agility (AGI) - Increases Speed

Dexterity (DEX) - Increases Skill

Intelligence (INT) - Increases Magical Damage

Pretty straight forward however something to keep in mind is that Magical Damage does not refer to elemental damage. Physical Damage covers the Physical side of the elemental skills while Magical Damage covers the Magical side of the elemental skills.

You might be asking, what does Speed and Skill do? For that we have the Secondary stats:

General:

Health Points (HP) - Your amount of life

Speed (SPD) - How fast you are at attacking and dodging

Skill (SKL) - How skilled you are at hitting and recovering

Attack:

Physical Power (PP) - How strong you are with physical weapons and skills

Magical Power (MP) - How strong you are with magical weapons and skills

Armor:

Physical Defense (FD) - How much physical damage you mitigate

Magical Defense (MD) - How much magical damage you mitigate

Attunements:

Fire Attunement (FA) - Your ability to control and resist Fire

Water Attunement (WA) -Your ability to control and resist Water

Nature Attunement (NA) - Your ability to control and resist Nature

Light Attunement (LA) -Your ability to control and resist Light

Shadow Attunement (SA) - Your ability to control and resist Shadow

Speed basically increases how fast you are dashing up to the enemy (if you're meleeing) then attacking and your projectile speed whether it's phyiscal or magical. Speed also increases your chance to dodge physical attacks.

Skill increases your chance to get a critical hit, possibly increases your chance to hit with a physical attack (if we even have missing possible which we are still figuring out), and cooldown rate. If you look at the Skill stat you can see it's pretty awesome, but this is a stat that will be difficult to raise and won't have an abundance of it so don't think you'll be able to make a character with nearly 0 cooldown.. well if you managed to expect something to get nerfed :P

We changed our use of the word attunement, when we first mentioned it we referred to it as the element you initially picked that defined your character's starting point. We'll just call that your Native Element or something instead because the term is better used here. So your attunement stats are dual purpose. They represent both how strong you are with that element and your resistance against it.

Now here's where we add in some S&D flavor and change things up a bit. You won't be getting any actual attribute points to assign to these stats specifically. Instead these stats get raised by items and what we refer to as Class Skill Points (CSP) that you get every time you level up. CSPs are used to get class skills which follow a similar Physical/Magical set up with 5 categories on each side with skills for each. This is how you'll be choosing your class essentially and how you use these points will determine your Class Title (like Warrior, Paladin, Mage, etc). I won't be going into details about this yet but basically what happens is as you level up and build your character by assigning the elemental and class points you have earned your Class Title will change accordingly.

On the art side of things Kevin is working on the female animations and hair which you can find more of at Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTD. He also has a poll up on which hairstyle you guys would like to see first, be sure to put in your vote! Here's some sketches:

Human Female Sketches

That's all for now, sorry for the end-of-day post but we were both busy most of the day.

As always let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments, thanks!

v4.4.2 has been out for a while but here is the official post about it.

Possible Solution to not being able to log in: Thanks Anon!

SOLVING LOG IN ERROR:

right click on the game, click local settings editor (flash settings editor window should pop up), click local storage settings by site.Delete www.snd-storage.com from that list and confirm, refresh the page (or restart your browser, just to make sure) and now your error page is gone, log in like always.

What's new in v4.4.2

New Story Level - Poke Tower 1 - Begin your climb up he poke tower, catch yourself a Gastly and Cubone!Level Cap up to 55 - New moves are introduced into the game because of this level cap increase. It is now possible to get Dragonite!Fast-Forwarding x2 - No longer must you wait for waves upon waves at their slow pace. Speed up the game to level up faster. (This also caused a huge bug with evolving, but it now fixed :D )New Mystery Gift Avatar -Get your very own Cubone Helmet!New Adoption Pokemon -Shiny Gastlly, Cubone and Magnemite are now available.19 new moves added to the game.New Pokemon Evolutions (4) - Marowak, Haunter, Gengar, and Dragonite.Fixes:

Daily Code will give out more casino coins.

Fixed issue with Chapter five showing as chapter 4, and chapter 4 having the wrong picture when locked.

Levels and Chapters that are locked are now faded out more to hide details of that level. - Thanks Andy!

Psybeam causing confusion on a target before completing the attack- Thanks LaserLuke4 from Twitter!

Okay well down to business. Tomorrow as you all know will be Hero Tower Defense Tuesday, Dan will be bringing you some more new info on the game and some art from our artist Kevin. I addition to that I will be giving HTD it's own tab up on the blog. It will be an easy way to access all the information so far on the game and eventually you will be able to play the game there.

Another tab that I will be adding soon is a "Labs" tab. The mind of a creative person never shuts down. As a game designer I'm always looking for what's next. While juggling due dates and updates, I constantly think of ideas for games that I want to work on. The "Labs" tab will provide a place where I can post some of those ideas that are floating in my head for you guys to check out and tell me which ones kinda sound like something you might want to play or you think other people might like. I don't have a specific date for the Labs tab but you should expect it some time this week. Also keep in mind that not all ideas will be gold, I assure you they all won't be. :D

Weekly Progress:

This week I will be taking it a little bit slow. Trying to get the chat up while still giving you guys something to do.

New Mystery Gift Pokemon (100%) - Had to fish this guy out for you guys!

Graphics (100%)

Shiny Graphics (100%)

Add Stats for this Pokemon (100%)

New Moves (4) (100%)

Metal Claw (100%)

Stomp (100%)

Brine (100%)

Crabhammer (100%)

Evolution (100%)

Graphics (100%)

Shiny Graphics (100%)

Add Stats for this Pokemon (100%)

New Level Cap 60 (100%) - Last Level Cap increase until chapter 6 of the story mode.

New Moves (8) (100%)

Flare Blitz (100%) - Growlithe

Magic Coat (100%) - Porygon

Psyshock (100%) - Drowzee

Trump Card (100%) - Eevee

Smog (100%) - Flareon

Megahorn (100%) - Nidoking

Zap Cannon (100%) - Magnemite

Amnesia (100%) - Mew

Adding hints on how to get Flash to the Rock Tunnel level (100%)Fix an issue with not being able to put Gastly on the field after catching it (100%)Fix Perish Song (100%)Dragon Tail makes the target turn around before hitting them (100%)Earthquake's attack info will now include that it will hit your own towers (100%)Adding more space on Mt. Moon 2 and Cerulean Gym so that you can see pokemon coming before attacking (100%)Adding Speed x3 and x4 (100%)Using a Shiny Golem and Steamroller, the regular golem graphic shows up (100%)Dragonite not learning Wing Attack at 55 (100%)Lick Attack's text color is the wrong one (100%)Fix Shiny Sprites for Ivysaur, Magnemite, Venusaur, Electrode (100%)Pokemon evolving will say Bulbasaur evolved into Ivysaur (100%)Add Scope to inventory list in the Pokemon Center (100%)If a pokemon faints while you are dragging it, it will now not be able to be placed on the field (100%)Give Curse a different effect if a ghost pokemon uses it (100%)Fix move description for Outrage, the cooldown is off (100%) You guys voted! Speed will slow down to x1 when a shiny or legendary popup shows up (100%)

More Security stuff (100%) Avatar Chat (0%) - Let's see if I can start working on this!Pokedex Remember what you can and seen (0%) - Let's see if I can have time for this!Trading Center - if a user doesn't log in to the trading center after 3 days all their offers and trades will be taken off the trading center (0%)Trading Center - Sort the pokemon when you are offering a trade by number (0%)

That's what we have for this week, let me know what you think! I'm crossing my fingers I won't have anymore evolution bugs!

This week we're going to take a look at Kevin's WIP human female design, talk about character creation, and answer some related questions that are likely to be asked after reading this.

Kevin has started working on the human female character which I know some of you have been waiting for. It's still early in development though and we're making adjustments as we go. Check out Kevin's blog, KXN @ HTDfor some additional information and concept art he's working on. He'll also be starting on some hair styles and is interested in some suggestions for them from you guys. Here's the latest version of the human female character:

Early render of a human female in full plate armor

You might notice the usual characteristics that distinguish a female from a male are absent in this initial image. We intentionally started out this way because we want to be sure that you can easily tell the difference between the genders just from their contour and shape even when they are fully suited in armor. This is important for being able to glance at things quickly and knowing exactly what it is.

Male characters can also share a lot of the same features that are typically used to identify females, e.g., long hair, light colors, etc so we don't want to be restricted by these things by fixing them to a specific gender for the sole purpose of differentiating them from eachother. Another thing that falls into this category is having all the females showing a lot of skin regardless of how much armor they are wearing. To me that's a cheap way out for making a female identifiable in heavy armor.. or lack thereof. It makes more sense for lighter armor to look that way since it allows you to be more agile.

Another reason we don't want to restrict specific colors, hair styles, etc to genders is because we want there to be as many options available as possible during character creation so you can create the characters you want. We're still figuring out what you'll be able to customize exactly but right now we're thinking race, gender, skin color, hair style, and hair color (remember this is just for your character, not their armor, weapons, effects, etc). We would like to have some facial features as well at some point but it's a lot for a little so it's not a high priority right now.

Now I'll address a few questions that are bound to be asked eventually:

"What about eye color?"

The style Kevin is current going with doesn't really involve significant detail to the eyes so they are generally just black ovals. They will be quite small as well so only a few colors would be really be noticeable and the rest would kind of all look the same as those.

"Can I change the character's height, size, or proprotions?"

This is very unlikely unfortunately because all our graphic assets are sprites and changing any of these attributes, even a little, would cause all kinds of conflicts with the armors and such.

"Will you see the hair when wearing a helmet?"

This is an interesting topic because it's one of those simple things that is actually quite complex to implement. As of right now we are going with no visible hair while wearing a helmet, even if you have long hair. However, we would allow you to turn off the helm graphic without actually unequipping it and thus still taking advantage of it's stat bonuses.

The reason for this because you'd not only need to create the hairstyle itself but you'd also need to customize every hair style for every helmet in every angle and that adds up to a lot of work very quickly for something that isn't really that significant.

Although something that just came to mind is maybe we could have just a generic "long hair" look while wearing a helmet and that would be applied to all long hair styles and their share their color of course. Shorter hair styles would just show no hair while wearing a helmet. A problem you might realize though is that if your character has a ponytail and it switches to this generic "long hair with helm on" look it wouldn't be in a ponytail anymore. A possible solution could be to just have a couple different "long hair with helm on" looks to cover the majority of the hair styles but we'd probably only start with one for now. We'll have to see, I'm rambling now though so I'll stop there :P

As always feel free to leave us feedback, give us suggestions, ask us questions, or just let us know what you think in the comments!

Hey guys, Sam here bringing you the latest updates for Sam & Dan Games. Let's get right into it.

Progress Report:

New Story Level (100%)- Pokemon Tower - After training you pick up the scopes and head back to Lavender town to catch some ghost!

Level Intro (100%)

Level Layout (100%)

Level Waves (100%)

Level Ending (100%)

New Pokemon to catch (2) (100%)

Gastly (100%)

Graphic (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Pokemon Stats (100%)

New Moves (5) (100%)

Night Shade (100%)

Shadow Ball (100%)

Dream Eater (100%)

Dark Pulse (100%)

Destiny Bond (100%)

Cubone (100%)

Graphic (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Pokemon Stats (100%)

New Moves (3) (100%)

Bone Club (100%)

Bonemerang (100%)

Bone Rush (100%)

Level Cap to 55 (100%) - Finally Dragonite! New Moves (8)

Hurricane (100%) - Pidgey

Drill Run (100%) - Fearow

Final Gambit (100%) - Mankey

Circle Throw (100%) - Poliwrath

Meteor Mash (100%) - Clefairy

Brave Bird (100%) - Farfetch'd

Perish Song (100%) - Jynx

Outrage (100%) - Dratini

New Pokemon Evolutions (100%)

Dragonite (100%)

Graphic (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Pokemon Stats (100%)

New Moves (2) (100%)

Thunder Punch (100%)

Fire Punch (100%)

Haunter (100%)

Graphic (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Pokemon Stats (100%)

New Move (1) (100%)

Shadow Punch (100%)

Gengar (100%)

Graphic (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Pokemon Stats (100%)

Marowak (100%)

Graphic (100%)

Shiny Graphic (100%)

Pokemon Stats (100%)

New Mystery Gift Avatar (100%) - Cubone Avatar!

Boy Cubone Avatar

Graphics (100%) - Thanks Kimmy Lube!

Implement in game (100%)

Daily Code will give out more casino coins (100%) - This is ready right now!Fix issue with Chapter five showing as chapter 4, and chapter 4 having the wrong picture when locked (100%) Levels and Chapters that are locked are now faded out more to hide details of that level (100%) - Thanks Andy!Psybeam causing confusion on a target before completing the attack (100%) - Thanks LaserLuke4 from Twitter! Shiny Blastoise Graphic fix (100%) Fast Forward button (100%) - After all the request, I will work on getting this out!The achievement Star Wars will only trigger on Cerulean Gym (100%)Avatar Chat (0%) - Didn't get to work on this at all will try to give it another try this week.Pokedex remembering what you saw and catch even if trade your pokemon (0%) - Not sure if I will have enough time this week but I do intend to get this done in the near future.Security Fixes (50%)

Game (100%)

Pokemon Center (0%)

Top 10 Forum Questions of the Week:

1. ZKS: Have you ever thought of opening up development to the community, like Valve does? Specifically, letting developers who know what they're doing build "Fan-Made" challenge levels? Releasing 1-2 with each update will allow you to focus on the story/enhancements while keeping hardcore fans entertained between updates.

I think that would be a great idea but an idea that would take a long time to develop, considering the game is only half way done and I haven't even started on multiplayer. Something like this will have to wait unless, you guys the players would want this before multiplayer.

2. Marth: Will we be able to fight Gary and Ash?

Yes and yes! That is all I will say.

3. Garuthebest24: If u were able to live in any region in Pokémon for the rest of your life what will it be?

Kanto Region!

4. Ume: When/Will you give out a Sneakpeak/Demo/Teaser of Hero Tower Defense? >: As in Video xD or a short Flash Game ;3

As soon as we have something we will post it here right away, that picture that you saw at the end of the last HTD tuesday is literally where the game is now. Right now you fight against an endless supply of whelps until your two characters die then that's it. Not a lot to do yet.

5. Professor Smeargle: Since you can't include all the egg moves for pokemon in Daily codes, how do you plan to incorporate the other Pokémon with egg moves? (eg: Close Combat - Growlithe)

In the daily codes, I will add more in the near future.

6. ultraube: How many hours do you spend on most of these updates?

It's hard to really keep track of it all since I don't have a set schedule but I would say over 20 hours for each update.

7. Dollyface61: Will all of Kimmylube's avatars be in the game?

I'll try to find a way to fit them all when possible, v4.4 will have one :)

8. Cheatfreak208: Have you thought of the idea of Pokémon dropping items, which you can pick up. They would go away after a certain amount of time. And rare candies that have a small rate of falling from Pokémon and which you can not buy.

Pokemon will hold items in the near future, so I suppose if they are holding something and you defeat them that it would drop.9. Hypermania: Will Kevin, at some point, work on the art for PTD if the chance comes?

He might, but we would rather he make HTD art for the time being.

10. Richard Harper: Hey Sam, Will all the past Postponed items/areas/bugs/extras ever be added? And will it include some of the bugs/suggestions from your own blog page?

Whenever I need to fill in some space on what to add to the game I will look at the suggestions and bugs pages. Most of the time just the story level and level cap can fill up the whole week.